Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Chris Small: ABC Business Sales CEO on the unemployment rate rising to 5.6%, impact of AI

Transcript

Chris Small: ABC Business Sales CEO on the unemployment rate rising to 5.6%, impact of AI · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A right, let's talk unemployment. Job markets taken another hit.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Remember this is backwards.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Looking global uncertainty and an oil price shocks or many
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: employers put off intentions to hire new workers or creates jobs,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: and that's had a real impact on New Zealanders looking
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: for work.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: So number is five point six percent, highest in eleven years.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: At Chris Small ABC Business Sales co with me this morning, Chris,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: good morning, Good morning, right, Het, very good, Thank you
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: tough out there for a lot of people who are
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: looking for work. Although there are now more people who
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: are looking for work, which could be a good thing
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: or a bad thing, We're not entirely sure.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look it's interesting. I think, you know, obviously listening
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: to all the comments for media around number, I think
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: one thing that PEPs hasn't been mentioning we've seen live
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: on the ground is the involvement of AI and what
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: that's doing to sort of white collar ods. We've seen
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: a lot of business owners take on that AI, whether
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: it be clawed or check GBT and sort of starting
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: to fill a bit of a void for some of
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: their roles and really not not encouraging them to go
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: out and high So I think that's that's something that
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: needs to be scored into the conversation when you think
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: about this number.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It's interesting you say that because Silicon Valley, those guys
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: have said, oh yeah, we're worried about the great job
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: wipe out. But then in the last few months I have said,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: now we think, actually, on balance, this will create more jobs.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: You're saying in New Zealand, You're you're hearing and seeing
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: that AI is coming.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Absolutely so, AI call AI consultants are relentless around either
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Like I'm a business owner with ninety staff, I'll be
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: getting bombard at less twice or three times a week
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: by someone promising me a consultancy where they can reduce
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: my staff by three or four people if if I
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: bring them in and they put this new system in
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: and I think on the ground, if you talk too
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: many professional services fems around the amount of graduates they're
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: taken on. I know for a fact some of the
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: top four have reduced that number by up to fifty percent.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Because those types of roles you think about, these sort
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: of white collar, low end grunt roles we'd call them,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: We're just go through lots of volumes of work that
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: actually can be replaced by AI. So those sorts of
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: roles won't say redundant, but there's certainly best of them
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: and that's contributing to the figure. Fl If you look
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: at those unemployment numbers, South Island's only three point seven percent,
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: largely a world based economy, while six percent is coming
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: out of the North pind. We have got the big
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: urban centers like Wellington and North clumb So I certainly
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: see it as more of a white collar number rather
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: than a overall New Zealand number.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Fascinating and so if you've got kids who are going
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to UNI and want to become lawyers.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Absolutely think about it.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, held on, Ryan, Hey what about those you said
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that there's people contacting you and saying, oh, you know,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: we can have your workforce with an AI consultant. Have
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: you ever taken them up on their offer? Have you
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: sort of investigated further?
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, to be honest, in that happens, we're fully integrated AI.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: And what I would say is we haven't made off
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: any staff. It's given us more productivity, more capability. But
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: I will says I haven't hired any new staff, which
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: may I may well have done a normal part of
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: normal part of business. When you're growing, I've done you
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: know what AI systems is great. It's it's allowing me
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: to me more production. I don't have to hire anyone else.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: So I think, to my point before it's stopping people
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: hiring new people, and potentially down the track, you know,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: it may well be a sort of as AI evolves
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: and becomes batter, you may well be in a position
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: where you can reduce that sort of lower end of
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: sort of white collar workers who do that grunt work.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Fascinating. Chris Small ABC Business Stales C Good TV on
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the show this morning.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: to News Talks it Be from five am weekdays, or
• 3:40
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